Following on from Chris’s post on the ethics of ritual slaughter, I thought I’d put up a link to one of the best things I read last year in the Guardian, on the ins and outs of the Halal meat industry. Suffice it to say that the definition of “Halal”, as with so many regulatory issues in the food industry, is a somewhat fluid concept, subject to the same sorts fo industry lobbying and regulatory capture as any other (reading between the lines, I pick up that the real problem for the halal industry is that if you don’t stun animals before slaughter, then they tend to kick around a bit, damaging the meat and leading to wastage costs which cannot always be passed on to the consumer).
Suffice it to say that if you really believe that it is a grave sin for you to eat meat which was not killed in the precise manner prevalent in Mecca around 622 CE, then it is probably not a good idea to go shopping for stuff branded “Halal” in the UK. It looks to me as if vegetarianism is the only religiously safe option for fundamentalist Muslims in the UK. For non-fundamentalists who understand that the strict traditional approach is not consistent with the realities of a modern abbattoir, then surely there can be no principled objection to starting up a debate about what compromises can reasonably be expected between religion and animal welfare.
I have no comparable information easily accessible online about the Kosher meat industry, but kosher/non-kosher scandals are a staple of the North London local press, so I would guess that similar arguments go through …
{ 14 comments }
Scott Martens 03.22.04 at 1:47 pm
In the States, this tends to create “Establishment Clause” problems. Ideally, the FDA ought to get together some reasonably representative set of rabbis or imams and hash out just what qualifies as kosher and halal to them, then allow those who meet those halal standards to affix appropriate labels. Falsely affixing such a label is, then, fraud and federally prosecutable. Not everybody would agree to those standards, but then they can have their own super-strict halal and kosher labels and purchase appropriately. Such a system would still presumably serve the bulk of Jewish and Muslim consumers and would create a reasonably enforceable legal framework for monitoring compliance.
The trouble is that considering the fuss over organic standards, I’m sure somebody would claim such a move is tantamount to state establishment of a religion.
Mrs Tilton 03.22.04 at 2:27 pm
Somebody (the New York State Court of Appeals) already has.
(Found with an assist from Eugene Volokh, who agrees with the court.)
Matt 03.22.04 at 2:36 pm
The problem is that there is no single definition of “kosher” in a fractured religion (some consider “hard cheeses” kosher, some don’t. Recently, without any forewarning, the entire religion up and decided that corn syrup was kosher for passover, leading to the importation of soft drinks into the KFP aisles.) The solution is obvious, and it is generally what is done in America.
Different religious groups create a “mark” that they will allow to be placed on items that they consider to be kosher. (The “OU”, the “K”, etc.)
That way, the consumer, rather than the government, gets to decide what “kosher” means. If some group wants to trademark a pig symbol and mark their product as “kosher pork — look for the sign of the pig!” that’s perfectly legal. People who want to keep kosher will just have to decide whether to trust that symbol or not. Most won’t.
I don’t see why halal should be any more difficult to enforce without getting the government involved in religious interpretations.
dsquared 03.22.04 at 2:41 pm
Complicated in the UK because if the UK government were to get involved in certifying halal meat it would almost certainly open itself up to massive legal action under the treaty of Rome from Dutch producers of “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Halal!”.
Scott Martens 03.22.04 at 3:14 pm
Mrs Tilton – why am I not surprised that someone’s been through this in US court?
I realise I’m pretty atypical for thinking that it’s okay for the state to take reasonable and good faith measures to protect consumers’ desire to buy products with qualities that I think they are silly to care about. I could agree why with that particular ruling because the law was so terribly vague about what qualifies as kosher. If it had said “orthodox Hebrew practice as described in section [blah]:[blah][blah] of the New York commercial code” I would have been quite okay with a ruling in the opposite direction.
Matt – consider a comparable case involving less religious concerns: “orange juice.” US law says that if something is labelled orange “juice” it must in fact be at least a particular percentage orange juice (50% or equivalent in concentrate, IIRC). If this was a matter of private labelling, it might say “certified as pure orange juice by the Association of New Jersey Food Additive Manufactures – contains grapefruit juice and artifical flavours.” How many consumers look at the side of the carton? Do people have the right to have certain expectations when they see labels on food, or should they have to read the fine print every time?
There are a few people who will only buy orange juice that is not made from concentrate and has no added sugar, but most of us don’t care. But there are few people who are happy to buy pre-mixed Tang labelled “orange juice.” If the law correlates reasonably well to people’s expectations, it’s working reasonably well. It would seem to me that the same case could be made for kosher and halal.
D^2 – I hadn’t even thought about the EU’s interest in labelling. BTW, you’ve been watching the Vicar of Dibley lately, haven’t you? “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Jesus”?
Mrs Tilton 03.22.04 at 4:03 pm
Scott,
If it had said “orthodox Hebrew practice as described in section [blah]:[blah][blah] of the New York commercial code†I would have been quite okay with a ruling in the opposite direction.
I’m not certain that would work, constitution-wise. I don’t think the legislature of New York would pass muster if it set about defining what constitutes ‘orthodox Hebrew practice’ (not even if we construe ‘orthodox’ here as including all the wide array of practices and standards that may commonly be found within Judaism, i.e., not (only) orthodox).
No secular legal authority can, or should, worry about assuring observers of kashrut that the things they buy are in fact kosher. (Indeed, no single Jewish legal authority can assure all such observers that what they buy is kosher. I am reminded of the old Jewish joke in which Moses goes to heaven, where he is invited to dinner by the Lord Himself. After hesitating a moment, Moses says, ‘I’ll just take the fruit cup…’)
The thing to do, I think (and I also think this is what is very often done) is for the various streams within Judaism to establish bodies to judge whether a particular item is kosher. Any food producer could apply to a board (or any number of them) and, upon satsifying the board, be authorised to carry the board’s seal of approval on its label. Any Jew who cared about kashrut could decide which board he trusted (‘Kashrut Front of Judaea: carve me a slice; Judaean Kashrut Front: I’ll stick with the fruit cup’). And any producer who used a board’s seal without authorisation could be held liable, on purely secular grounds, without the secular authorities having to consult the Talmud. Exactly the same system, mutatis mutandis, could be used by Muslims with respect to halal meats. But if I (to continue with Matt’s amusing example) market ‘kosher pork sausages’ without usurping a board’s seal, I may be accused of making an offensive joke, or of having a shockingly poor grasp of Jewish dietary laws; but I should not be accused by the State of New York of fraud.
dsquared 03.22.04 at 4:13 pm
What’s the betting that genetic modification can create a kosher pig?
(and how did I know it would only take a second to find out whether this question had been adressed?)
Irkam 03.22.04 at 4:34 pm
Here is New Jersey’s Halal food disclosure rule. NJ was first in the nation with this, but all these laws are modelled on state kosher laws.
Zizka 03.22.04 at 4:37 pm
There’s already a mule-foot pig (no cloven hoof) but it doesn’t chew the cud, and that would be hard to engineer since it presupposes a whole different digestive system.
Jews, Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Manichaeans all came to China at about the same time (ca. 500-800 A.D.) and from the same place (Persia). I believe they distinguished Zoroastrians from the others (they died out quickly anyway), but they didn’t care much about the differences between the other ridiculous groups, which they tended to lump. (They aren’t clear today that Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons ultimately belong under the same “Christian” umbrella).
Anyway, the difference between kosher and halal is a certain tendon, so either Muslims or Jews have been described by the Chinese as “tendon-eaters”. Christians eat pork but not dog. Manichaeans were vegetarians and eventually were absorbed by Buddhism; their religion favored eating melons.
In Christian history, converts were forbidden to eat horse meat. In Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism, dietary prohibitions were were a way of dissociating from religions of sacrifice and (except for Buddhists) idol worship. Often notions of purity are also involved, including bathing, avoidance of dogs, avoidance of garlic and onions, etc.
Mongol practice required that slaughtering be done without spilling blood. Animals were slaughtered by making an incision, reaching in, grabbing the heart, and squeezing it until the animal died. Attempts to enforce this practice on Muslims were resented for some reason.
Realizing that it’s an error to apply humanocentric values to non-human creatures: were it me, I would argue that the most humane practice would be not to slaughter me at all, with questions of method being quite secondary. That may be linear, left-brain thinking, though.
Ian Whitchurch 03.23.04 at 2:39 am
The whole halal/kosher story reminds me of something I heard from an Ultra-Orthodox guy I used to work with.
Apparently in the Sydney food industry, a particular rabbi and imam in charge of certifying places as halal and/or kosher used to visit jointly, as that meant disrupting production only once. They worked together for many years, and very occasionally, due to sickness and so on, when only one of them could make the visit, he fill in the appropriate checklist for the other, and then take it to the home of the other for it to be signed.
Apparently, this never caused a problem …
dsquared 03.23.04 at 12:51 pm
This practice is actually quite normal, but it’s asymmetric. “Halal” meat is usually also kosher (because it’s been kept separate from pork etc and slaughtered in an acceptable way) but “kosher” meat is not usually halal (because it hasn’t been slaughtered by a Muslim while reciting a prayer).
For this reason, most “kosher” meat that you see in shops comes from the local halal slaughterhouse. Unless you live in Israel I suppose.
Ikram 03.23.04 at 4:05 pm
Dsquared — I think you’ll find that view on the “permissibility” of kosher meat consumption for Muslim varies. Some will say Kosher meant is ‘zabiha’ Ã (slaughtered int he appropriate way) and is halal (permissable). Others disagree.
I think that 20 years ago, Kosher meat was more accepted among Muslims in Christian countries, as the Halal (Zabiha) meat industry was in its infancy. For political, business competition, ethnic and religious reasons, kosher meat is falling out of favour among Muslims (at least Muslims in the US. I don’t know about the UK).
Mrs Tilton 03.23.04 at 4:55 pm
My understanding was that the generally accepted view among Muslim jurists is that a Muslim may eat meat certified as kosher if no halal meat is available.
I imagine observant Jews would be quite upset to learn that the ‘kosher’ meat they were eating came from a halal slaughterhouse (unless, as seems unlikely, all the slaughtering was carried out by a schochet). I don’t think observant Jews consider halal meat to be, well, quite kosher. It may be, though this is sheer speculation on my part, that rabbinic authorities would view eating halal meat as permissible b’diaved; that is to say, if you find out afterwards that the meat you’ve eaten was halal rather than kosher, you have committed no transgression – but you’re not permitted knowingly to accept halal as a substitute for kosher.
As I am neither an imam nor a rabbi, of course, none of the above has any value whatever as religious jurisprudence.
Zizka 03.23.04 at 10:16 pm
So, then, who are the “tendon-eaters”?
There is a halal form of Chinese cuisine, which would also be kosher, and which would solve a lot of problems for Orthodox Jews in NYC ordering take-out.
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